


follow it through to the obvious end

by boo98 (butter)



Series: lean on me [1]
Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Coming of Age, M/M, Magic, Pack Dynamics, Werewolves, canon compliant AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-09
Updated: 2017-01-09
Packaged: 2018-09-15 09:01:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9227993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/butter/pseuds/boo98
Summary: How baby wolf Hansol finally grew into his fangs, and how he found a home along the way.





	

**Author's Note:**

> The longer, verkwan-focused piece of my Seventeen wolf AU, as promised! While writing it this thing turned into some strange Vernon character study/coming of age piece, which I guess is alright? Either way, this is the longest thing I've ever written by far, and I hope you like it! I hope to write some more bits of this series in the future!
> 
> You don't need to have read my earlier fic in this series to understand anything, but it might make some of the mentioned jihancheol dynamics a bit clearer. 
> 
> Disclaimer: this fic has a lot of discussion of a/b/o dynamics, but it's purely in a pack dynamics way, not in a sexual way!
> 
> For kpop shenanigans and me posting about my various fic headcanons, follow me at boo98.tumblr.com!

When Hansol first moves into the boys’ dorm his dad takes the train with him and helps him lug his suitcases up the narrow stairwell to the apartment he’s going to be sharing with the rest of the trainees. Hansol is just getting to the age where he’s a little embarrassed to have his dad tagging along and introducing himself to all the hyungs and the managers, but it isn’t until he asks to have a word with Mingyu and Wonwoo that Hansol actually wants to die.

His dad pulls the other two into the cramped kitchen space under the guise of privacy but Hansol can still hear basically all of their conversation from where he’s sitting on the floor in the living room area re-folding clothes. As he listens to his dad giving them what essentially amounts to a pep talk and instructions for dealing with a rowdy kid wolf he can feel the back of his neck burn a bright red and he hunches up in his sweatshirt.

Out of nowhere, Soonyoung flings himself down on the floor next to him and grabs at his t-shirts. “Hansol-ie is such a fashionista,” he croons, holding up one of the probably four different striped polos that Hansol owns. “You’re gonna make us all look bad.”

Hansol shoves him a little and lets a grin break out on his face. “That’s not hard to do hyung, you’re all fashion disasters.”

“Hey, at least we got Mingyu to start wearing jeans that actually fit.” Soonyoung huffs showily and folds the shirt again messily, then twists to face Hansol straight on. His eyes are puffy from probably not sleeping enough last night, like the rest of them, and his hair is a halo of frizz. “You know the deal with the beds, right?”

“What deal?”

“Basically that there is none.” Soonyoung barks a laugh and ruffles Hansol’s hair, and Hansol ducks his head but smiles wider. “Too lazy to decide on whose bed is whose, and Jihoon kind of just falls asleep wherever, so we figured that it’s a free-for-all. So you better be quick at washing up at night, or you’ll be stuck with the couch.”

Before Hansol can respond his dad peeks out from the doorway to the kitchen and nods in greeting at Soonyoung, who he’s met before when he picked Hansol up from practice once and Soonyoung was staying late to practice choreography. “Will you be ok if I leave? Sofia gets out of school in an hour and your mom works late tonight.”

“Yeah, dad,” Hansol heaves himself off the hard wood flooring and pads up to him. “Thanks for coming out and helping and everything,” he adds lowly, ignoring the ways Wonwoo and Mingyu are looking at him with matching grins.

He lets his dad hug him for a bit, sinking into it just slightly and letting himself breath in. His wolf curls up in the scent of family, of home, and he’s embarrassed to feel just the beginnings of tears prick up in the corners of his eyes. Hansol blinks them back quickly before pulling back and grinning up at his dad. “Tell Sof that she better be doing her homework, or I’ll call and make her.”

His dad ruffles his hair and says his goodbyes to the manager and the other trainees before slipping out the door, leaving Hansol with half-unpacked luggage everywhere and the itching feeling in his gut that maybe he over-estimated just how ready he was to move out.

He doesn’t jump when Mingyu slings a gangly arm over his shoulders but it’s a close thing. “No offense, your dad seems great, but he’s acting like you’re still a puppy,” Mingyu says, but there’s not really any heat to it.

Wonwoo does his part by punching Mingyu in the arm probably too forcefully than he should have and shakes his head. “Hey, his first born is basically moving out of the house, it’s like he’s getting married.” He gives Hansol one of his natural, wide-toothed smiles. “It’ll be fine, don’t worry. It’s basically like how it is in the practice room all the time only Jihoon’s even more grumpy, if you can believe that.”

It’s true, Hansol thinks to himself later that night after hanging his stuff up in their shared closet and retreating into the bathroom to sleepily brush his teeth. He thought it would be weird, being in a space surrounded by the scents and sounds of people that aren’t his family, but really it’s the same as the practice room. He’s already familiar with all the other trainees, knows whose sneakers are whose at the doorway, so it’s not going to be that bad, probably.

He spits into the sink and sticks his toothbrush back into the elephant-shaped holder that’s suction cupped to the mirror, a moving-out present from his mom. It looks kind of dumb, with the rest of the sink covered in everyone else’s toothbrushes and the solitary tube of toothpaste, but Samuel’s moving in next week and maybe he’ll have something even more embarrassing. Like a panda, or a cat.

Hansol looks at himself in the mirror and takes about three seconds to slap lotion on his face lazily before flicking the lights off and heading towards one of the bedrooms.

The bunks are mostly filled but not totally, considering they’re still waiting on a few other trainees to move in. He smiles at the lump that is Jihoon passed out on one of the top bunks, recognizable underneath his favorite blanket even if Hansol couldn’t tell who it was by scent alone. They all smell the same as always, mostly, covered up by the soft tinges of moisturizers and face masks and toothpaste, but it’s warmly familiar.

He shuffles over to an empty bottom bunk that’s shoved right in next to another bunk, only an inch or two of space between the two twin mattresses, and when he lies down he immediately realizes that there is no way this whole bed situation was because of Jihoon’s narcoleptic tendencies. This is a total wolf thing, and it’s screaming of Wonwoo’s more subtle workings.

He quietly lies down on the single pillow, draws up the comforter around his shoulders, and is immediately even more surrounded by the faded scents of the rest of the trainees who live in the dorm. The bed things have been washed but not recently, and it should be gross but instead it’s hugely comforting.

Hansol closes his eyes and lets himself curl into a ball at the top of the bed and breath in. He thinks Seokmin used this bed last, maybe, the pillow smells like him, but the blanket is a complete mix of the rest of them. It smells like his couch at home, a faded-in mix of the familiarity of his family, something so engrained that it could never be washed out. Hansol lets out a breath that’s only a little shuddery. It all smells like somewhere he could belong.

++

The dorm isn’t perfect, obviously. That many boys crammed into one small space is kind of hell on his senses after a few weeks. They’re all almost constantly sweaty, even with the seasons changing into winter so that it can’t be blamed on their broken air-con, and Hansol can’t help but get a little twitchy and territorial after a few too many instances of a hyung borrowing his hats or his charger.

None of them can cook so they mostly subsist off of take-out and convenience store ramen, no matter how many times his mom texts him reminding him to eat well so that he can grow more. They don’t clean enough, or do laundry enough, but it’s still kind of awesome.

Seungkwan had been one of the first ones to move in, having to relocate from Jeju anyways to train, and his touches are everywhere. Junhui insists that he has witches in his family too, but Seungkwan is the only one that shows it. He's always been a little more superstitious than the rest of them, a little more sentimental about things that seem pointless like rain on a Tuesday or loose eyelashes, and a little more magical in general.

A little while after Hansol moves in Seungkwan takes him by the arm and shows him the small hanging charm tied up in the window in the main room. It looks like twine attached to a slip of paper with strange symbols on it, and a few strands of multicolored beads dangling below. When Hansol makes a point to sniff it, it smells like lemongrass and sea salt.

“It’s for purification and focus,” Seungkwan explains, fingers moving to loosely grasp Hansol’s hand. This was one of the nice things about being friends with Seungkwan; he never shied away from the skinship that came naturally to Hansol, instead making a point to grab his hand or pet his hair affectionately. “My mom made it for me when I first moved to Seoul, and she said she’d teach me how to recharge it so that it doesn’t go stale. At home she has one of these in, like, every room, but she said we probably only needed one for now.”

Hansol nods, pretending to understand. Magic always went kind of over his head; he didn’t have any practitioners in his family, and things were kind of different in America, he guessed, so his mom didn’t even talk about it much. It was cool to see the way that Seungkwan’s shoulders got all straight and proud when he talked about charms and stuff, though, the same way he got quietly self-assured after nailing a new high note in practice. “That’s cool. Can you do anything like that?”

Seungkwan sniffs and looks at him, pretending to act all haughty, and Hansol just has to knock his shoulder with his own. “Of course I can. I mean, not that one specifically, but I can do little things.”

He pulls Hansol away from the window, both of them slipping in their sock feet, and towards the closet. Seungkwan lets go of his hand to sort through the haphazardly-hung clothing and Hansol stuffs his hands back into his pockets. After a moment Seungkwan makes a noise of recognition and pulls his school uniform out, digging through the pocket before showing Hansol the small piece of paper that was tucked inside.

It looks like plain notebook paper, thin blue lines and everything, but it’s folded carefully and delicately into a tight knot. Hansol honestly can’t imagine Seungkwan having the patience to take the time that folding the thing obviously took, but from how happy he looks cupping it in his hands it’s obvious he actually did make it.

Hansol picks it up and looks at it closer when Seungkwan nudges it closer. It’s folded so much that the paper feels hard as solid wood, and for a second Hansol feels a shiver run down his spine.

“It’s really basic, but it’s to promote alertness,” Seungkwan says, hands on his hips now and looking very pleased with himself. “It seriously helps, I can make you one if you want. I made Channie one the day before his midterms last spring and he aced them even though we had late practice the night before.”

“That’s cool too,” Hansol says, and it really is. If he concentrates he imagines that he can smell something almost sulphuric, like the smell before it storms, but it’s gone the next second and he hands the charm back to Seungkwan. “You’re like Harry Potter.”

Seungkwan snorts and tucks the charm back in his pants pocket carefully. “I’m better than Harry Potter,” he makes his hands into circles like glasses and pulls a face at him, “I’m Boo Potter. Respect.” The last word he says in his lilted, funny English, and Hansol cracks up, pushing him away.

“You’re so weird.”

Seungkwan pulls a pouty face at him but takes Hansol’s hand again anyways. “Whatever. C’mon, Jihoon-hyung told me to teach you how to use the washing machine, you’re not getting away with never doing your own laundry anymore.”

They wander down to the basement laundry room, which always smells like mold and sweaty socks. Hansol hates it, and it’s part of the reason he’s ended up just asking Seokmin or Soonyoung to do his laundry when they do theirs. Seungkwan dumps his basket of clothes in one of the machines and after he switches it on, explaining loudly to Hansol what each button does as he goes through the process, they sit on the rickety bench that’s positioned in front of the machines.

Seungkwan leans against his side and Hansol pushes back enough to balance out the weight. “There’s a full moon next week,” Seungkwan says, and Hansol guesses he should have known this was coming.

“Yeah.” Hansol picks at a frayed spot on the knee of his jeans.

“…Wonwoo-hyung said that you’re not on the stuff that manager-hyung gives him and Mingyu for full moons.”

“…Yeah.”

Seungkwan shoots him a look from underneath his too-long bangs. “Did your family just do moons together? That’s what my neighbors back home did. They had a house with a yard so they just kind of hung out back there the whole night.” He sniffs and pulls at the hem of his t-shirt, which hangs loosely around his skinny shoulders. “My sister always said that she heard howling on full moons but I think she was just trying to mess with me.”

Hansol laughs. “She was definitely messing with you. But yeah, I mean, we just kind of had family time during moons.” He shrugs. “It’s not like in the movies, you know, we don’t have to shift or anything. I mean, when you’re a kid you do, but it’s just because you don’t know any better.”

He turns his hands over in his lap, thinking. “It’s more like, you can shift at any time of the month, right? But during the full moon it feels better to be in wolf form, I guess. You get kind of itchy, and some people get more, like, wolfy on the full moon. But yeah, the dynamics manager says that I don’t really need to be on the shift blockers yet, but probably soon. All it does is help control the shifting when it’s all over the place, like during the moon.”

Seungkwan hums under his breath in interest. “So you’ll just be weird and irritable for a day or so, huh.” Hansol sees where he’s going with the conversation from a mile away and is already shoving him, laughing, when Seungkwan continues with, “I have lots of experience dealing with monthly anger issues, I have a sister, you know.”

++

They’re in the practice room, the cameras off but everyone doing their own thing to prepare for the next round of practice monitoring. Hansol’s in one of the private rooms messing around on his laptop when one of the managers knocks on the door.

“Jeon manager wants to talk to you about one of the new trainees,” the manager says, and Hansol carefully shuts the laptop before following him to one of the small meeting room spaces. Sitting around the small table is the dynamics manager, the vice president, and an older boy with scruffy black hair and a face that’s somewhere between weird and handsome.

Hansol takes the seat pointed out to him, across from the other boy and next to Jeon manager, and realizes – oh. The other boy is a wolf. Hansol grins tentatively at him and the boy smiles back, eyes a bit nervous but posture confident and strong-looking.

“Hansol, this is Choi Seungcheol.” Jeon manager gestures to the other boy, who takes off his cap to scrub a hand through his hair before bowing his head slightly in greeting. “He’ll be joining you and the rest of the trainees starting tomorrow, we just wanted to introduce you before he meets everyone else.”

Hansol nods before realizing that everyone else is looking at him expectantly. “Uh, hi, nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you too,” Seungcheol says, and his voice sounds friendly. “I look forward to practicing with you guys.” It’s perfectly polite, probably just what he’s expected to say, but Seungcheol has the kind of voice that makes it seem completely sincere. Hansol likes him already.

“He’s already met Wonwoo and Mingyu,” the manager continues, and Hansol sees the vice president glance at him. “We know that introducing new wolves into the mix can create some confusion with the rest of you, especially with Seungcheol having presented already, so we want to make this as smooth of a process as possible.”

Hansol kind of stops listening, and Seungcheol’s shoulders tense when the manager mentions that he’s presented. Presentation is somewhere between private and just embarrassing to talk about, especially among strangers, but Hansol can’t deny that he’s curious. If he took a second to scent Seungcheol he would probably be able to tell, but he knows that’s rude, so he just looks back at the manager.

Seungcheol shifts in his seat before dredging a grin up again, which he directs at Hansol. “It’s kind of new, but I just settled into omega. Uh, I know I’d be the first presented wolf on the team, so hopefully it doesn’t conflict with you guys too much. I’m excited to work with you all though,” he continues, and his tone returns to the evenly-practiced wording of before.

Jeon manager claps a hand on Hansol’s shoulder, making him startle a bit. “Well, we’ll give you two some time to talk and get to know each other. Seungcheol’s your hyung, Hansol, so help him get used to the company building and treat him well.” He and the vice president gather their things and leave, and the door shuts quietly behind them.

Hansol shifts in his seat for a second but Seungcheol quickly seems to take pity on him. “They really care about dynamics here, huh?”

Hansol shrugs but smiles. “I guess? There’s not really enough wolves around for us to have to worry about it though, I thought.”

“Guess they’re just hedging their bets for if they end up with like ten of us hanging around in a year?” Hansol laughs, and Seungcheol laughs too. His eyes wrinkle up when he smiles big like that, and the more Hansol thinks about it the handsomer he seems.

Soon after Seungcheol comes Joshua, who gets a more general introduction to the whole group, and Hansol latches on to him immediately. He’s quiet but funny, and it’s nice to have someone to speak English to. The dorm feels a little more like home, being able to yell asking for socks in the morning in English and have someone actually respond.

Joshua doesn’t always get the whole wolf thing, though. “I just never really knew many, back in LA,” he explains to Hansol once when they’re in the training room watching Youtube videos. “They kind of kept to themselves in school and everything, so I don’t know much about all of it.”

Hansol doesn’t really mind, because Joshua will still put his arm around Hansol’s shoulders like the rest of the hyungs when they watch TV, and by now Hansol’s been put on shift blockers so even moons don’t get to him much.

Jeonghan joins them a while later, and then it’s like the introduction of a fifth wolf sets everyone else off. Wonwoo and Mingyu both present as beta within a month of each other, which goes pretty smoothly compared to everything else, because then Jeonghan goes alpha a few weeks later.

The week leading up to his actual presentation kind of sucks. Seungcheol’s on edge the whole time, jaw set and territorial over dumb things. Wonwoo and Mingyu keep to themselves, half out of nerves that Seungcheol will explode on them and half because Jeonghan’s gotten kind of scary since he became comfortable with them all.

Hansol mostly just stays out of the way, attaching himself more to Joshua and Seungkwan than usual. Because he’s unpresented he can’t smell the slight changes in dynamics the way the hyungs can, but he can still tell how tense Seungcheol gets the more Jeonghan steps into his personal space.

Then, one afternoon, it’s like a switch is flipped and Seungcheol stands stock-still in the living room, paused from where he was heading towards the kitchen. “Oh god,” he groans, and spins like a top to face Jeonghan, who’s lying on the ground next to Chan and watching a drama on a laptop.

“What’s your issue,” Jeonghan drawls, shifting to get in a more comfortable position leaning against a pile of clean quilts that haven’t been put on the beds yet.

“You asshole,” Seungcheol kicks him lightly in the knee and drops to sit next to him. “You just went alpha.”

Jeonghan’s eyes widen slightly, and Hansol shifts his weight from foot to foot awkwardly, wishing he could casually leave the room from where he’s lingering near the fridge. Next to him, Seungkwan shoots him a confused look as Jeonghan responds. “Oh.” He looks shaken, in the way he hasn’t looked for ages now. “I… I didn’t realize that, I guess.”

Seungcheol’s mouth twists and he huffs out a breath before taking the back of Jeonghan’s neck in his hand and pulling him forward so their foreheads hit. Hansol feels like he’s going to die. None of them have ever been this forward with their dynamics management before, and it’s so weird to see it happening just there in the middle of their dorm.

Jeonghan’s eyes are crossing, trying to keep eye contact with Seungcheol, and finally his posture softens a bit and he moves his hand to cup Seungcheol’s jaw. They stay like that for a moment, and a low growl rumbles up in Jeonghan’s chest. Then, out of nowhere, they both shift, and Seungkwan grabs Hansol’s hand.

Hansol’s seen Seungcheol’s wolf before, a rangy-looking thing with dark fur and patches of grey, but never Jeonghan’s. It’s tall and slim, with warm chestnut-colored fur and a spot of irregular white on his chest. There’s a second where they stand still, and then Jeonghan’s growl grows louder and he slams against Seungcheol’s side.

Seungkwan’s hand tightens on Hansol’s, and he instinctively moves to push Seungkwan behind him slightly. Seungcheol hits hard against the wall, but he pushes back up with a matching rumble and braces himself. Jeonghan approaches slowly, head lowered.

“What the fuck’s happening,” Seungkwan hisses against the back of Hansol’s neck, hands moving to grip the material of his t-shirt.

“Jeonghan has to challenge Seungcheol.” Hansol winces when Jeonghan makes a move to grab Seungcheol’s scruff with his teeth, but Seungcheol twists out of the way just in time. “He’s been the head of the pack up till now, and if Jeonghan wants to be recognized as an alpha then he has to get Seungcheol’s respect.” The two wolves ram into each other again and one of the standing fans in the corner gets knocked to the ground, where it bounces dully against the wood, plastic snapping. “Kind of sucks that they have to do this in the dorm, though.”

“No kidding,” Seungkwan whines, and ducks further behind Hansol when Seungcheol goes down hard with a high-pitched whimper. “They’re gonna kill each other.”

Hansol doesn’t think so, but his hands are still itching to pop claws. The suppressants stop everything but fully willful shifting, though, so they stay completely human. Instead, he watches Jeonghan finally get his teeth around the thick ruff of Seungcheol’s neck, and the dorm is silent again except for the harsh panting escaping both wolves.

They stay like that, and Seungcheol makes one last scrabble of claws against the slick floor before huffing and falling loosely to the ground.

Another few seconds, and then Jeonghan shifts back. It looks like it takes it out of him, and he falls back hard on his ass. “Aish,” he groans, rubbing his side. “You dick, you didn’t have to make it that difficult.”

“Hyung,” Hansol pipes up finally, relaxing slowly now that they’re done. “Put some clothes on, please. You’re traumatizing us.” Jeonghan looks over as if he forgot anyone else was in the room and rolls his eyes, then grabs one of the quilts he was lying on earlier and wraps it around his shoulders. His now-ruined jeans and shirt are still lying next to Chan, who’s staring at them from against the wall like everyone has gone insane, clutching the laptop close to his chest.

Seungcheol hasn’t shifted back yet, and Hansol takes a second to worry before the wolf heaves himself up. He looks over at Jeonghan and then stands to pad heavily past him, brushing against Chan and continuing down the hall.

Seungkwan lets out a shaky breath from behind him and Hansol glances back to look at him. “Are you crying?”

“Shut up,” Seungkwan sniffs, and wipes his eyes with the back of his hand. “That was kind of scary, you know. Is Seungcheol-hyung ok?”

Hansol frowns and looks back at the living room. Jeonghan has stood up and started heading to grab new clothes, and Seungcheol is nowhere to be seen. “I think so? Probably. I haven’t seen one of those fights before. Jeonghan did what he was supposed to, though, and Seungcheol didn’t seem too hurt, so it’s probably fine.”

Seungkwan nods but doesn’t seem convinced, and doesn’t start cheering up until after Hansol has pulled him to sit by Chan and watch TV with them. Hansol hates the way that Seungkwan smells whenever he cries, which is uncomfortably often. It’s too salty and it makes his gut twist, nothing at all like the sunny warmth with tinges of something sulfuric and eerie that his scent normally is. He stops, though, and sinks in against Hansol’s side about halfway through an episode of some cheesy romantic drama, so that makes things better.

Later that day Hansol is poking his head in one of the bedrooms to see if there’s a spare bed when Joshua hisses at him and waves him over from where he’s claimed a bottom bunk. His eyes look tired, and when Hansol gets closer he spots the almost hidden patch of fur that is Seungcheol. The wolf is curled up between Joshua and the wall, snout tucked carefully under his thin tail and eyes warily tracking Hansol as he approaches.

He glances at Joshua, who smiles crookedly. “He’s been like this since earlier,” Joshua explains quietly in English, and reaches out to scratch at one of Seungcheol’s ears when the wolf grumbles, unhappy to be kept out of the conversation. “Is something wrong?”

“Nah,” Hansol sits on the bed and takes his chances at rubbing one of Seungcheol’s ears too. Normally he might not be able to get away with the affection if Seungcheol was in a mood, but the wolf allows it with a huff and closes his eyes. “I think he might just be sulking for a bit, maybe. Jeonghan presented alpha and got one over him in the fight, so his pride probably hurts.” He shrugs when Joshua just looks at him, confused. “He’ll be back to normal tomorrow, I think. He just needs a break.”

Joshua hums and strokes a hand down the length of Seungcheol’s spine. “Is it weird that I always wondered why you guys never spent more time as wolves? I mean,” he continues, seeing Hansol tilt his head at him, “I guess it just always seemed like the wolf was supposed to be half of you. And I’ve only ever seen Seungcheol as one maybe three times now, and Mingyu and Wonwoo only once.” He doesn’t mention how he’s never seen Hansol’s wolf, but the thought it there, under the surface.

“Yeah.” Hansol’s shoulders inch up towards his ears. “I mean, I dunno about the others, but I guess for me it’s always because – I mean, most of you guys are human, right? And it feels weird to disturb that, I guess. Back home I don’t shift much but I guess I did it there more than here, just because everyone else would shift too.”

He scratches at his neck. “I think we tend to spend more time as wolves when there’s more of us around. Since there’s just the five of us, plus we’re all on shift blockers most of the time, we just… don’t.”

Seungcheol moves, irritated, and lays his head in Hansol’s lap, eyes looking up at him. Even in this form he manages to look grumpy, telling him off for not speaking in Korean so he can understand. “Sorry hyung,” Hansol grins, cupping Seungcheol’s jaw with both hands and shaking it a bit, playfully. “Josh and I are allowed to have private time too.”

The wolf snorts against his arm, which is kind of gross, and butts his knee. Joshua smiles at Hansol conspiratorially and scratches Seungcheol’s ears again.

++

They debut. It still seems kind of fake whenever Hansol tests it out, the phrase ‘rookie idol group Seventeen’, like this is still some stunt for a show or just a performance for their fans. But no, they debuted, and it’s – it’s ok?

Or no, it’s great, they get to perform on actual music shows and release actual music that’s just theirs, not a cover song or teaser or anything. He gets recognized more than a lot of the hyungs, which is embarrassing mostly but also a little cool.

There’s still a lot of practicing until early in the morning, but there’s also long wait times in chilled dressing rooms at broadcast stations, and additional filming for behind the scenes footage in almost every spare second.

Everything’s great, is the thing. He gets taller, and Seungkwan grumpily makes him this spiced tea thing for the cramps he gets shooting down his calves, grousing under his breath the whole time about how unfair it is that Hansol’s going to be taller than him any day now. Their trainers update his exercise regime, and when he looks in the mirror now he can tell he’s getting less and less scrawny, if only barely.

Seungkwan changes too, though. He was always confident but it seems like he’s really feeling it now more than ever, chatty and bright for cameras no matter how sweaty and tired they are at the end of a long day.

Hansol quietly hates it when the company puts him on a crash diet and exercise plan at one point - he’d kind of loved the way his cheeks were filling out, it made something warm curl in his stomach at the idea that Seungkwan was eating well. He didn’t examine this thought too deeply at the time, because he was the same way with Joshua’s thin wrists and legs.

It’s probably a wolf thing, he figures, wanting the pack to be taken care of. Jeonghan's always been like that, prodding at him and Chan to eat more whenever they have meals together.

The diet carves out Seungkwan’s cheekbones and jawline, though, and it makes Hansol awkwardly aware of something he’s managed to avoid thinking about for basically ever.

When they were trainees they’d all had a lecture from the vice president that boiled down to how singers really couldn’t have private lives, no matter what, and especially not in their early days as rookies. From the way the vice president had eyed Soonyoung, who had squirmed in his seat throughout the whole talk, the rest of them had guessed what he really meant. No girls allowed, obviously, but more than that – no boys. Ever. And no discussion about it, not really, except for the way Seokmin would good-naturedly jab Soonyoung in the side whenever they were at an event with Shinee-sunbaenims.

And so Hansol had never really given it much thought, the fact that he figured he liked boys just as much as he liked girls. Joshua had tried to talk to him about it once, but Hansol had run away with a sputtered “It’s alright, oh my god, please stop,”.

And that was the end of it, until one day when they’re sitting in the salon at what feels like two in the morning but is really just edging towards seven, getting their makeup and hair done before their pre-recording later in the afternoon. Hansol’s done already, hair pushed back meticulously and nose itching from the scent of the thick stage makeup they have on.

“Yooo,” Seungkwan greets him lowly, and sits next to him in one of the over-stuffed waiting lounge chairs. He’s waiting on hair and makeup, eyes still puffy from sleep over the white face mask he’s wearing. His hair, bleached blonde now, looks soft from being washed last night.

Hansol nods tiredly at him, and lets Seungkwan lean against his side. He’s still wearing his puffy winter coat, and the fur lining the hood tickles Hansol’s neck. “Figured you’d be napping. You still have to wait a bit, right?”

“I need to start warming up,” Seungkwan yawns behind the mask and his eyes crinkle shut with the force of it. It’s cute. “My throat’s in bad shape lately.”

“The cold?”

“Yeah, Seokmin-hyung and I both need to watch it.” He shifts grumpily and settles down to tip his head against Hansol’s shoulder. “You’re, like, really warm. What the hell.”

Hansol laughs. “Maybe it’s a wolf thing.”

“Lucky, I’m freezing.”

Hansol turns his head to look at Seungkwan. He’s dressed for their schedule, the stylist noonas already having put him in the pants and jacket that they’re all wearing for the stage, but he has the bomber jacket crumpled in his lap in a way that’s sure to get him scolded later for wrinkling it. His legs look long, and his fingers seem fluttery and birdlike, knuckles red from the cold.

Hansol’s struck, out of nowhere, by the quick and blinding desire to pull him in closer, tuck him under his arm. He looks too cold, the back of his mind is reasoning, and he just said Hansol was warm. He wonders if the tip of his nose is red with cold too from underneath the mask, and then wants to pull the mask down to see.

He wants to see the pout of Seungkwan’s lips, chapped and red because he forgets to bring lip balm to their schedules so he won’t wear it if stylists don’t put it on him themselves. And, Hansol realizes with a sense of slow-dawning fear, he wants to dip in closer and press his nose behind Seungkwan’s ear, breath in the scent of him without any of the harshness of the hairspray or stage makeup. Seungkwan always smells warm and clean, but Hansol thinks if he could just get a bit closer he could get a grasp on the hints of misty rain that sometimes appear out of nowhere in his scent.

This is maybe not good. His gut clenches and he tightens his grip on the armrest to stop himself from reaching over like he wants to. He would probably pop claws, if it wasn’t for the blockers, and Hansol takes a second to thank god for them. No, this isn’t good at all.

The rest of the day he’s on edge. He can’t focus during their dry run, and Joshua pats him on the shoulder after Hansol gets chewed out by one of the PD-nims for not being able to find his camera. Jeonghan comes up to him at one point to tease him, no doubt trying to make him feel better in his own way, but the proximity to another wolf has Hansol’s spine prickling and he can only answer in short sentences before slipping away to the other side of the dressing room.

That night, he quickly claims a bottom bunk in the smaller bedroom, and pretends to be asleep before Seungcheol can try to talk to him. He has shit to quietly freak out about.

So, it’s not like Hansol had never been vaguely attracted to a groupmate before. At one point he’d had an embarrassing, slightly star struck crush on Seungcheol, after all. That had been mostly his wolf reacting to having a new omega watching out for him, wanting to repay the attention in some way, and it had faded quickly, though.

This felt like something different. He’d always been close to Seungkwan – at times it felt like he’d known him longer than some of his friends back home, even though they hadn’t met until they were around 14. It didn’t feel like a childish fascination, or a quick to burn out attraction. They were friends, they’d been friends for ages – this felt like something deeper.

And then there was his wolf. Hansol imagined he could feel it prowling on the edges of his mind, irritated and ready to spring. It wasn’t usually this much in the forefront of his consciousness. He was used to thinking of his wolf the way that his dad always explained it to him – it was a sense of instinct, a subconscious working that was inherent to the way his personality worked.

It wasn’t this separate side of his mind that it seemed to be now, voicing its thoughts loudly against his own.

Hansol flexes his fingers and curls a little more in on himself. He can hear Mingyu clamber up to the bunk above him and he stamps down on the instinct to growl. That’s another thing – he feels furious at the idea of sharing space with another wolf right now. It has him gripping tightly to the edge of his comforter. He should probably talk to Jeon manager tomorrow.

++

He talks to Jeon manager.

He’s started to present.

He probably should have suspected it, but honestly Hansol had no idea what it was supposed to feel like. Jeon manager instructs him to stop taking his shift suppressants and instead hands over a loose leaf packet of meditation exercises. Hansol takes them with no intention of ever actually doing any – they’re in the middle of promotions, he has literally no free time that’s not spent catching a harried few hours of sleep.  

The first few days off the blockers seem normal, but quickly it spirals out. He feels like he’s teething constantly, and can’t focus without chewing on something. One of the stylist noonas takes pity on him and keeps feeding him from her bag of dried sweet potatoes, and they don’t help much but they’re something.

He feels like he pops claws every few hours, and at the dumbest things. Minghao moves too fast in the edge of his vision during rehearsal once and Hansol reacts like it’s an attack before he can think, claws out and lip cut from his canines extending.

Seungcheol keeps sitting by him in the car between schedules and gripping the back of his neck firmly, not talking to him but staying nearby. Part of Hansol is immediately comforted by the gesture, the habitual caretaking of the pack omega, but part of him shies away for reasons he can’t explain.

Maybe worst of all, Seungkwan seems to know something’s wrong, something more than just his presentation. At first he hovers close to his side, but each time he reaches out to Hansol to try to calm the constant, anxious shaking of his hands Hansol feels himself pulling further back.

His wolf fights him, tearing at the edges of the boundary that he’s trying to uphold, insisting instead that he take Seungkwan firmly but carefully by the back of the neck with his teeth. If he did it over the thick sweatshirt Seungkwan’s wearing it would be fine, it wouldn’t hurt him, the wolf seems to purr. It would make Hansol feel better, it would soothe the nerves twisting in his stomach.

When the wolf starts to make more sense to him than before, Hansol knows it’s time to try to stay away from Seungkwan completely, at least until everything settles. It’s hard. He’s used to turning towards Seungkwan when they’re waiting backstage and sitting near him in the car, and Joshua gets suspicious quickly when Hansol tries to glue himself to him instead.

They wrap up domestic promotions and the next thing he knows they’re on a flight for a concert appearance. Hansol wedges himself in between Minghao and Chan and pretends to not miss Seungkwan’s habit of tracing symbols for good luck on the tray table.

Hansol knows that the managers probably had good intentions when assigning him and Seungkwan to the same room at the hotel. They’re only there for one night, with their flight leaving almost immediately after their performance the next day. They get to the room and dump their suitcases on the bed, and the air is tense.

Hansol sits on the bed he always picks – they’ve roomed together enough that this is a routine – and scrolls sullenly through his phone. His stomach is growls. He never feels like he’s able to eat enough lately, and the pang of absent-minded hunger is probably what keeps him from realizing that Seungkwan’s approaching him until he’s right there.

“So,” Seungkwan starts, and sits on the edge of his bed across from Hansol, “you’re very mopey lately.” Hansol tenses before he can think not to and it makes Seungkwan sigh. “If you don’t want to talk you don’t have to, but…” he pauses, and looks down to pick at one of his nail beds. “I mean, Jisoo-hyung said you probably just needed space, ‘cause of the wolf stuff and everything but. Is there something wrong? With me?” The last part is quieter, and Hansol sees Seungkwan shrink in on himself a bit and it makes him feel sick.

“Hey, no, nothing’s wrong,” he starts, and is reaching out towards Seungkwan before he can think. They’re close enough that Hansol can reach Seungkwan’s elbow, which he takes carefully. “It’s just – my presentation stuff is driving me crazy, you know that.”

Seungkwan looks at him doubtfully, but shifts a little closer. “Is it really that bad? I mean, I know your claws are going crazy, but beyond that?”

Hansol thinks. “I dunno, mostly it’s just… My wolf is being weird. Weirder than usual,” he continues, seeing Seungkwan’s eyebrows quirk down in confusion. “It’s like, normally it’s just in the back of my mind, right? But right now it feels more like, like a split personality.”

Seungkwan hums. “Sounds weird.”

“Yeah, I guess.” The wolf is prowling on the edges of his mind right now, taking a backseat for once. It seems to have calmed down now that Hansol is touching Seungkwan, which makes him nervous. “It should be done soon, though, hopefully.”

“Do you… Do you have any idea which way you’re going to go?” Seungkwan peers at Hansol from underneath his bangs, as if trying to tell if he’s insulted him or said something wrong.

Hansol puts on his best smile, trying to tap into his normal easygoingness. “Dunno. Normally you can kind of tell based on the symptoms you get, during presentation and everything, but it differs based on your wolf’s background, and I’m half American grey. Seungcheol-hyung says his teeth got as bad as mine when he was presenting, but so did Wonwoo-hyung’s, so it’s hard to tell.”

“You know I could have been giving you stuff for that,” Seungkwan grouses, and moves his arm so he can take Hansol’s hand instead. The direct skin contact sends goosebumps up his arm, which he tries to ignore, and he can almost feel his wolf prick an ear up in interest. “You’re too stubborn, idiot.”

Hansol laughs roughly. “Jeon manager said I shouldn’t take anything that might interfere with the presentation.”

“Charms don’t count, they’re all-natural, organic.” Seungkwan looks offended, but his thumb is tracing softly on the back of Hansol’s hand. It seems like he doesn’t even notice he’s doing it, and it’s simultaneously calming and maddening.

“Sure.” They grin at each other for a beat of silence.

“Well,” Seungkwan says, and turns to the side slightly to rummage through his backpack with the hand that’s not holding onto Hansol, “I don’t know about you but I’m gonna pass out soon,” and he might say something else but Hansol immediately stops listening.

It shouldn’t hit him as hard as it does. When Seungkwan turns his head his neck is pale and smooth, but all Hansol can see is an angry red scratch that runs from the collar of his shirt to halfway up towards his ear. It’s thin, and probably from something dumb and clumsy but all Hansol can think of is claws or fangs scraping up his neck. Something that wasn’t him, is what matters, and he moves before he can think.

It’s like he blinks and the next thing he knows he’s up, hunched over Seungkwan with a knee pressing into the mattress to the outside of Seungkwan’s thigh. He’s used the hand that he was holding onto Seungkwan with to pull himself forward, and Hansol’s nose is pressed to the skin behind Seungkwan’s ear.

He’s growling, not low in his chest the way all the wolves do sometimes when they’re frustrated or annoyed but up in the back of his throat. It’s loud in the room around them, and Hansol would be embarrassed if he could think of anything other than the burn in his stomach and the red on the edges of his vision right now.

His fangs are out, he realizes somewhere in the back of his mind, and he can smell Seungkwan’s scent spiking anxiously. His wolf feels like it’s expanded, taking over all of his limbs, and he’s just opened his mouth to take Seungkwan’s shoulder neatly in his teeth when –

_CRACK._

Hansol’s slammed back against his bed, back bending as he falls to the ground roughly. His skin is buzzing with electricity, and his vision is half-blinded from the bright flash of light that had accompanied the force that pushed him away. His vision clears slowly, and when it does he sees Seungkwan.

Seungkwan’s eyes look impossibly wide. He has one hand pressed against the side of his neck with the scratch, the side Hansol – shit, the side he just had his _teeth_ on – and the other hand held out towards him. It’s shaking, Hansol realizes dimly, and there are faint sparks popping between his fingers.

“Fuck,” Hansol rasps out. “Fuck, Seungkwan, I’m sorry, I – “. He can’t finish, he has to get out immediately, his wolf feels like a punch in the sternum and his claws are out. He scrambles up off the carpet, something sharp slicing through his stomach when he sees Seungkwan wince away at the sudden movement, and he practically sprints out of their room.

Something’s wrong, he realizes dimly, and he’s running down the hotel hallway. He doesn’t remember exactly where Joshua’s room was but Hansol’s working off of instinct right now, and he can follow his nose well enough. He makes it there probably quicker than he should have but he can’t think, and instead just bangs against the door to what he’s pretty sure is Joshua’s room.

There’s a moment of stillness, enough time for Hansol’s heartbeat to spike in anxiety, and then the door swings open. Joshua’s there, barefaced and in a loose t-shirt and a pair of sweats. His brow is furrowed and he looks Hansol over quickly.

“What’s wrong?” Joshua asks, and reaches out to pull Hansol into the room. “Are you ok? What happened?”

Hansol shakes his head, voice gone suddenly. He lets the door close behind him.

“Hansol?” It’s Seungcheol this time, popping out from the room and peering at him closely. “What’s wrong with him?” He directs this to Joshua, and steps closer to cup Hansol’s jaw. “You’re all wolfed out, Hansol-ah,” he says, voice even and calm but Hansol can feel his pulse thrumming quickly in his wrist.

“I,” Hansol starts, and has to cough when the words stick in his throat. He tries to steady himself and inhales, and is hit with the scent of the wolf in the room. No – wolves, because there’s Jeonghan’s scent, suddenly thick and present and assaulting.

Seungcheol’s fingers tighten on his chin. “Fuck,” he breathes out, and turns to look behind him. “Jeonghan, he’s presented, he – “

Before he can stop himself Hansol’s shifting, twisting out of Seungcheol’s grip as his spine bends and fur ripples out over his skin. He braces himself low against the ground, teeth bared and challenging.

Seungcheol hasn’t moved, and Joshua has his arm gripped vicelike in one hand. Hansol’s growl ripples, unamused, and he snaps at Seungcheol’s knees.

An answering growl echoes from further in the room and Jeonghan appears, fur shining under the fluorescents of the hotel room, head down. Hansol matches his pace and approaches, shoving past Seungcheol; he’ll deal with him later.

There’s the sound of the door opening and closing behind him but Hansol ignores it. Jeonghan’s eyes are bright, as if he’s laughing on the inside, and Hansol suddenly can’t take it anymore. He springs forward – his wolf is smaller than Jeonghan’s but just as quick, and he ducks to slam against Jeonghan’s chest.

The two barrel back in the hotel room, almost hitting the desk with the television on it but narrowly missing. Jeonghan twists them and shoves Hansol against the floor, teeth out. He presses harder, and Hansol hears himself keen loudly.

He doesn’t know what to do, fuck, it’s his alpha but suddenly it isn’t anymore and he needs – he needs to get out from under him, for one. He finds some strength and heaves Jeonghan off of him, rolling to his feet and panting.

Seungcheol’s wolf appears from behind Jeonghan then, not growling but standing sturdy and calm. Hansol feels backed into a corner, nothing but the hotel window behind him and his pack leaders facing him down. He feels young, all of a sudden, and sheepish.

Seungcheol takes a step forward, careful, and the fur on Hansol’s neck pricks up. He just watches as the wolf gets closer, though, and Seungcheol is careful to keep his head down enough to signal his intentions. He leans forward, ignoring Hansol’s high-pitched whine when Seungcheol enters his immediate space, and bumps Hansol with his shoulder.

Hansol’s wolf wants to slam the omega to the ground, bite his neck and signal his ability to run the pack. It wants to tear at the other alpha standing behind the omega to prove his strength. At the same time, though, it’s keenly aware of the status of these wolves. They’ve led him for years now, affectionate and tough and loving, and the human part of Hansol’s mind knows he would never beat either of them in a fight.

Instead he’s frozen in place, allowing Seungcheol to coax him further back until his rear legs hit the window and he has to sit. He’s shaking now, adrenaline rushing out of him and leaving him shell-shocked and weak. Seungcheol tips his chin up with his nose and huffs against the vulnerable fur of his throat before retreating, allowing Jeonghan to take his place.

Jeonghan winds his way in front of Hansol and pauses, taking a second to look him over. Hansol’s panting, near-whimpering, wolf conflicted and scared because of it. Jeonghan bares his teeth and Hansol winces, tilts his head down to bare his throat. Instead of the bite he’s expecting, however, Jeonghan just leans forward and licks at the side of his snout.

Hansol jerks in surprise, and Jeonghan seems to take that as a go-ahead to continue. He carefully smooths the fur on the top of Hansol’s head, then down to the ruff of fur on his neck. It’s strikingly intimate and makes Hansol feel like he’s five again, getting groomed by his mom after a long night of being moon-shifted. The affection quiets the panic of his wolf, and leaves him unsteady.

When Jeonghan seems to be satisfied with his work he pulls back, looking at Hansol with bright eyes. Seungcheol has shifted back unceremoniously, and leans forward to place a careful hand on Hansol’s neck. “Alright there?” he asks quietly.

Hansol settles a little at the touch, and the last of the tension in his limbs disappears. He whines and pushes his face into Seungcheol’s hand, who chuckles roughly. “You’re alright, you’ll be alright,” he mumbles.

Jeonghan shifts back as well and curls in towards him. “You scared me, kid,” he laughs. “Going all alpha like that all of a sudden, what’re we going to do with you?”

Hansol doesn’t reply, because he doesn’t think he has it in him right now to go human. He’s still shaking a little, but mostly he feels like curling up underneath a bed or something for the rest of the night.

The lock at the door beeps, and when it opens Joshua steps in with Seungkwan toted behind him. Hansol winces immediately and tries to shrink, to hide behind Seungcheol and Jeonghan. It doesn’t work, obviously, but he figures he’ll get points for trying. He hadn’t even noticed Joshua had left.

“Everything alright?” Joshua asks carefully, hesitant to move further into the room. Hansol can’t look at him, eyes stuck instead to Seungkwan. He looks shaken, eyes darting around as he tries to read the situation.

“Handled it,” Seungcheol grunts, cuffing Hansol affectionately on one ear and heaving himself up. “Shit, you’re lucky I overpacked for this,” he mumbles, and grabs a pair of shorts out of one of the suitcases on a bed.

“Those are mine,” Joshua says flatly, but Seungcheol and Jeonghan both laugh and work on dressing themselves again.

Hansol tries to sink lower to the ground, especially once Seungkwan begins to approach him. He’s still wearing the jeans and sweater he wore on the airplane, the same ones he was wearing earlier in their room. He still looks cute, Hansol thinks helplessly.

Seungkwan gets about two feet away and stops, looking at him. After a moment he sighs and crouches to sit on the floor, legs crossed, right in front of Hansol. “You’re being dumb,” he says.

Hansol can’t help but whine, and presses down to the floor. The noise cuts off, however, when Seungkwan reaches out – only hesitating briefly – and buries a hand into the thick fur at Hansol’s neck.

Almost immediately, he wants to preen under the attention. Seungkwan gently cards his fingers through his fur and, after murmuring an indistinct word, trails of warmth follow where his fingers drag down Hansol’s back. The warmth sinks down, into his muscles, relaxing them from where they had tensed in anxiety.

Before he knows it he has his head in Seungkwan’s lap, and only distantly hears the soft murmurs of the hyungs’ voices before the door clicks shut, and they’re left in silence. They sit for a while, Seungkwan maintaining a steady hand in his fur and Hansol slowly digesting what just happened.

“You know,” Seungkwan says, and Hansol looks up at him, “you’re being a lot easier to deal with right now. As a wolf, I guess.” He smiles, but it pulls down at the corners. “I think I’d like it better if you could talk, though. I have some questions.”

Hansol blinks at him. Does he know how to shift back? Of course he knows how, he does, but he feels like he’s forgotten everything under the weight of Seungkwan’s hands. 

“Look,” Seungkwan reaches over to the bed next to them and pushes through one of the bags until he unearths a pair of sweatpants, “pants! That’s exciting, right?” He holds them up like he’s demonstrating the big prize at the end of a game show. “Do you know who could wear these pants? Human Hansol-ie, maybe?”

Hansol huffs and, after taking a long minute to center himself, feels himself shift back. He takes the pants from Seungkwan, who’s very firmly looking away as if they’ve never seen each other naked before, and squirms around on the ground until he gets them on. “Thanks.”

Seungkwan hums, looking back at him finally, and Hansol takes a breathless second to register the tinge of red at the tops of his cheeks. “So. You tried to fight Jeonghan-hyung.”

Hansol flushes. “I mean, I guess, but it was just – I, my wolf wanted – “

“And Seungcheol-hyung.”

He rolls his eyes, but can feel the beginnings of a grin pull at his mouth. “It’s a wolf thing, I couldn’t help it. They beat my ass, anyways.”

Seungkwan tuts at him. “Oh, you’re alright.” He says it like it’s a fact, which makes Hansol take a belated check of himself. He’s right, he realizes, he’s completely scratch-free. Even the side that hit the floor when Jeonghan tackled him is only a little tender, nowhere near the giant bruise it should have been.

“Did you heal me?” Hansol asks. “I didn’t even know you could do that.”

Seungkwan sniffs. “Hey, maybe I’m just a better witch than you thought.” He softens. “I guess it’s kind of a new thing, I don’t know. You kids have your crazy wolf stuff, and I have my own magic puberty.” Hansol snorts, and Seungkwan looks a little proud that he got him to laugh. “The magic still isn’t really doing what I want all the time, though. Earlier, um, in our room, with the lightning and everything, I kind of thought I really hurt you.”

Hansol hunches up in himself but Seungkwan’s quick to reach out and touch his arm, just barely. “Hey, no,” he says. “Don’t do that. That, that was all alpha stuff, right? Your wolf being weird about something?”

Hansol shifts away from Seungkwan’s hand – he doesn’t think he can say everything he wants to if he’s still touching him. His wolf has all but completely retreated, resigned to the sorting out that its omega and alpha had given it, and he feels like he can think clearly for the first time in weeks.

“Kind of. Uh, you have a – “, he reaches out to gesture to the scratch on Seungkwan’s neck, but doesn’t touch it. “Like, a scratch, right there. And, um, it kind of set me off, I think.”

Seungkwan reaches up to cover the mark with his hand. “This? I think this is from Jihoon-hyung, his nails are always super ragged. I think he scratched me on the plane when he was stealing my headphones.” His eyebrows are furrowed deeply. “What do you mean, it set you off?”

Hansol squirms, nervous. “Um. It was like, I felt like someone else had marked you, like you were theirs, when you’re supposed to be…” his voice dies out and he laughs half-heartedly, rubbing his face with his hand. “It’s just dumb wolf things.”

There’s a pause. “Hansol-ie.” Seungkwan leans forward, close enough that Hansol can see the spots where his BB cream has smeared off during their travel. “Am I your favorite?”

“What, what’s that supposed to mean?”

“You just said your wolf freaked out because someone else touched me. Am I your favorite, then?” He looks pleased with himself, like he isn’t single-handedly sending Hansol into a fit.

He shifts. “I mean, you’re my friend, we’re friends,” and he doesn’t know why he says it like a question, looks up at Seungkwan for confirmation. “I, I like you. So. I don’t know, it made sense at the time.”

Seungkwan looks at him, considering. After a moment he seems to have seen what he wanted, because he nods slightly to himself and presses further forward. “Hansol. I’ve known you since you were a tiny, skinny kid.”

“You were tiny too,” Hansol says, huffy.

“Not as tiny as you,” Seungkwan grins. “I hung out with you at the practice room even when you were just watching dumb English videos that I couldn’t understand. I gave you probably half of the food my mom brought over the last time she visited. I’ve done, like, so much magic for you.” His eyes are soft and warm, and Hansol feels like he couldn’t look away if he wanted to. “Didn’t you know, you’re my favorite too?”

With that, Hansol feels the slow threads of what feels a lot like hope whisper in the back of his mind. “You’re so cheesy,” he mumbles, but allows it this time when Seungkwan touches his elbow again. “What does that even mean.”

Seungkwan’s grin dims but it just turns into something more sentimental, quiet. “What do you think?”

Hansol looks at him. He’s still flushed, at the tops of his cheekbones and the tips of his ears. His eyes look fond, and he’s so, so close all of a sudden. Those threads of hope wrap around his heart and pull tight.

He has to. He may never get another chance. He may royally screw everything up, but Seungkwan smells content and sweet and Hansol can’t _not_ do this. “Just,” he says lowly, and gently, gently reaches up to touch the back of Seungkwan’s neck. “Just tell me if this isn’t cool.”

He takes a second, after leaning in slowly, to stare dumbly at how big Seungkwan’s eyes look, before they close. And then, with his fingers tangled lightly in dry, bleached hair, Hansol kisses Seungkwan.

It’s not as weird as he thought it would be. It feels more like an affirmation, an ‘oh, of course this is what it’s like’, and he feels himself make a noise of surprise before he presses in more solidly.

It stays soft, careful, but Seungkwan responds to it and the confirmation that this is alright sends a thrill through Hansol. They kiss like they’re testing the waters, trying to feel what the other wants.

A few seconds pass, or maybe minutes. Hansol doesn’t quite know because they’re being slow but he can still register the taste of Seungkwan’s mouth, and he doesn’t know what to do with this new information but pack it up somewhere tight in his chest.

He lets his other hand drift to Seungkwan’s waist, bunched up in the thick sweater he’s wearing, and in turn Seungkwan’s hands flutter against the bare skin of his shoulders before settling lightly. Everything feels terrifyingly right, and the last vestiges of his wolf’s restlessness settle.

Slowly, they pull back with a wet noise that seems louder than it should be in the empty room. Hansol feels struck, looking at Seungkwan who looks back at him with equally wide eyes. His lips are wet and red and it’s amazing.

“Um,” Seungkwan says, and then seems to give up and instead ducks in to press his hot forehead to Hansol’s shoulder, arms wrapping around him tightly.

Hansol laughs, and maneuvers Seungkwan so he’s straddling Hansol’s lap, as close as he can get him. He lets himself hold him just as tightly, and burrows his nose into the collar of his sweater. He breathes in, and Seungkwan smells like warm, slightly burnt sugar, something bright and citrusy, and that lightning-scent that’s stronger now than ever.  

“We good, then?” He asks, and his voice sounds rough to his ears.

“I mean,” Seungkwan pulls back slightly to look at him, “assuming ‘good’ means ‘going to be doing all of that much more in the near future’, then yes.” He pouts when Hansol laughs, but he still smells dizzyingly happy. Hansol can’t help but lean in and kiss him again, relishing the noise Seungkwan makes when he quickly responds.

They spend some time like that, eventually moving when Hansol complains about Seungkwan’s fat ass making him lose feeling in his legs, and Seungkwan makes sure to knee him a bit too close to home when he gets up. They only kiss a few more times, both of them feeling a bit nervous and out of sorts with the new affection they’ve let themselves show, and eventually they just settle back against the side of one of the beds, hands clasped.

“Hey,” Seungkwan says after a long period of silence, “I thought this was supposed to be Jisoo and Jihoon-hyung’s room.”

“Uh,” Hansol looks around. “I think Jeonghan may have made Jihoon switch with him? And… Seungcheol’s just here, too?”

They both inspect the room, noting the three different suitcases that are each half-unpacked. “That’s something, huh,” Seungkwan says under his breath. “Should we, like, leave before they come back and expect to get right back to their weirdness?”

Hansol barks out a laugh. “Probably.” Seungkwan smiles at him and they heave themselves up off the floor, hands clasped together, and Hansol lets Seungkwan lead them back to their hotel room. He lets Seungkwan fumble with the card key, blushing and admonishing Hansol for his bare chest, but Hansol can only look at him and grin dopily. 

That night they sleep in their own beds, still slightly awkward and tentative about the boundaries for this new thing they've fallen into, but Seungkwan presses a minty kiss onto Hansol's lips before he turns the lights out. Hansol curls up under the covers, heart thrumming quickly in his chest, and when he breaths in the bed smells like sterilized cotton but also, faintly, like the smell of Seungkwan's hair. He sleeps well, that night.

 

 


End file.
